Women Quotas For Parliament.

At first it seems like a good idea & perhaps it has some merit if some good women with merit are being blocked because of a boys club. The worry is that this will turn into an engineered outcome and the possibility that might create outcomes that are unfair with any critics being labelled sexist bigots or the like.

If that happens, then it can be a detrimental outcome, an outcome of unfairness protected by a system that was supposed to stop such rorts. First off though lets look at what we know and prod at what we don't.

We know the numbers of women in Parliament are vastly outnumbered by the numbers of men. This has been deemed to be unfair. Without question any person who's qualified and of good merit who's been kicked outside due to a purple circle manipulating things to their chosen outcome is unfair and repugnant.

Is 50/50 representation on the front bench a thing we should try to attain, or recognise when it does happen?

Here's the thing. Some women in the corporate board sphere have reported that being the first woman through the door is brilliant. It affords you a slightly more equal position and many men unsure of gender politics over compensate in trying to be equal. Some have even acknowledged that being the first through the door sometimes (in earlier days) was easier than being the second through the door, that the first women through have protected their position by helping to install a glass ceiling themselves. True or not I don't know...but its some women's claim and one prominent director admitted she'd been guilty of it.

Any system to rectify glass ceilings must encompass all of those wishing to create favour. Factions must come into it (good luck). It must prevent token women coming in, token men coming in.

And before we get to a set of policies and procedures to curtail the various purple circles, what do the numbers say already? How many women have sought pre-selection in each party? What percentage of pre-selection applicants are women? If you have 85% men & 15% women then how is a 50/50 front bench fair and equitable and equality based?

How too does what ever checks & balances introduced ensure no token women are introduced to reach the required numbers? There are some under performers in Parliament now, some are men, some are women. How do we install a performance evaluation criteria across every MP, an independent scoring system to see what their ratings are? And should we...short answer yes, sooner the better.

Its all well and good to call for equality, but for who?

Why is there a gender quota being pushed for Federal Parliament, yet no one is pushing for 50/50 gender representation in sewerage industry workers? Or panel beaters and roo shooters. Is there a quota required for the nursing profession? Its generally female but shouldn't we be pushing and legislating for 50/50 male/female numbers?

What about teaching, is there more men or more women? Both serve well if they're good teachers that is. For many school kids a male role model is absent at home and one running the class room is a positive thing for several of the years of a child's schooling. Quotas anyone?

I've seen female shearers. Do we apply legislation to ensure half of all shearers are women? Rubbish collectors?
What about chefs? Can anyone sit in a restaurant and say definitively "that meal was definitely prepared by a man & that one definitely by a woman" ?
No they can't. And in pushing for equality some of the structures that get built are walls not bridges.

And why do we only focus on quotas on the high paid ministerial positions?

The thing is, in Parliament we lack measures of proper performance. If such a regular rating was applied and the final score presented prior to polling day we'd have a much better chance of having merit based MPs irrespective of their gender. Which I suspect is how it should be anyway. Isn't it? People judged on their abilities not their gender, faction, religion, family ties?

A progressive party could put 2 people on the ballot paper if they were allowed to, but they have to put one first ahead of the other. Toss a coin? Yeah, merit removed again and people encouraged to vote whichever way they want but some suggestion that voting based on gender?

It concerns me all this talk of gender bias and gender equality. True gender equality is when people get the job based on merit, experience and all other performance related criteria. True gender equality is when we're happy or unhappy with your rep because they're really good/bad & gender doesn't come into it.

Again, how many men & women applied for pre-selection for each party for each seat?
Some seats have no women apply for pre-selection at all.  How is that factored in without skewing data & applied outcomes via regulation?

Julie Bishop is a good party member to the detriment of her electorate some argue but she's a woman, she's in arguably one of the safest, if not the safest Liberal seats in the country. She's deputy party leader. Did she overcome the purple circle, is she part of the purple circle, did she get there despite the purple circle. Do we apply gender fairness & let her in only every 2nd election and have a man represent Cowan in the terms in between? No that's madness...gender equal madness.

Quotas are a quick fix idea with perhaps a lot of thought behind them, but certainly very little wisdom.

Just looking at the gender split on the floor of parliament is not enough & regulating a 50/50 split wouldn't happen in real life, so why apply it only to very high paid Canberra MP positions?

Remove ceilings and impediments and demand merit based, but 50/50 quotas can, when misused, actually favour ones gender over another at the cost of merit. It also makes gender a criteria...that's the bloody very thing we should be trying to stamp out.

                        What do you think? I'm gunna get some hate mail aren't I?